A day after the odd-even scheme implemented on trail basis since January 1 restricting the movement of private cars ended, several parts of the national Capital witnessed gridlock on Saturday.
Major intersections, including Chirag Dilli, Mahipalpur-Gurgaon road, Anand Vihar road, Burari Chowk, Raja Garden, Rajouri Garden, Ashram Chowk, Dhaula Kuan, Josip Broz Tito Marg, stretch connecting Shastri Park-ISBT Kashmeri Gate, Netaji Subhash Marg, Burari road, Mukarba Chowk, Uttam Nagar road, and Nizamuddin Khatta (ring road) faced major traffic jams, with commuters stuck for hours.
Abhishek Pattanayak, 23, while on his way to Netaji Subhash Place via Raja Garden said, “Traffic was smooth in Janakpuri area but as soon as I approached Raja Garden,
I got stuck in ‘never-ending’ vehicle tailback. It usually takes me 20 minutes to reach my college in NSP but today it took me more than an hour to reach there.”
Vikas Sanghi, a 46-year-old commuter, said, “Even-odd only brought bonus for 12 hours a day for 15 days.”
Special Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Muktesh Chander said, “Today (Saturday) we received calls from commuters about severe jams in areas close to popular markets in the city. For every such case, adequate personnel were deployed to ensure smooth flow of traffic.”
The Delhi Traffic police officials expect traffic to increase on Monday, the working day. “It is a logical way to expect more vehicles on road as commuters now will have a field day with nobody to penalise them and no volunteers to intercept their vehicles. Of course coming Monday will witness more traffic,” said DCP (traffic-headquarters) Romil Baniya.
The situation of traffic started looking poor since morning as around 9 am, severe traffic congestion was reported in the Delhi Cantonment area. Within an hour, there were long tailbacks witnessed at the stretches between Pankha Road and Uttam Nagar in west Delhi and between Pusa Road and Shadipur in central Delhi, a traffic official said.
By 11 am, the congestion at Delhi Cantonment area led to chock-a-block situation in and around Dhaula Kuan, where hundreds of commuters were forced to spend hours in their vehicles. Meanwhile, traffic snarls were reported at east Delhi’s Khichdipur, outer Delhi’s Burari bypass and the flyover at northeast Delhi’s Shahdara. In east Delhi, long tailbacks were witnessed at Preet Vihar and Vikas Marg, the official said.
By noon, the traffic snarls at west Delhi and central Delhi worsened, and its ripple effect was witnessed at Rajouri Garden and Patel Nagar areas respectively, the official added. Model Town, Kingsway Camp and lawrence Road were seen in compression mode as well. Also, Sri Aurobindo Marg, Mehrauli-Badarpur road saw traffic jam.
Since morning, commuters were kept updated about the busy roads on the social media platform, including Facebook and Twitter, by the Delhi Traffic police.
At 12 pm the Delhi Traffic police tweeted bout the obstruction in traffic in the carriageway from Raja Garden towards Punjabi Bagh due to breakdown of a DTC Bus in front of Rajdhani College. Frustrated by Saturday’s traffic jam, many commuters too praised the Delhi Government for its odd-even scheme on the social media.
Meanwhile, the advisory status of SAFAR, a unit of Ministry of Earth Science (MoES) showed their advisory status “moderate” for particulate matter (PM) 10 while for PM 2.5, status is poor but value was recorded very less.
The Delhi Government’s own real time ambient air monitors showed extensive plunge in the mass concentration of PM 2.5. The Delhi Pollution Control Committee (DPCC) meter in Madir Marg area traced PM 2.5 at 66 µgm-3 which is barely six points higher than the safe limit (60 µgm-3). Not even in inner circle of Delhi but in border areas, PM values have been decreased enormously.